Former world number one Lee Westwood has split from coach Sean Foley as he looks to arrest his alarming slide down the rankings.

Westwood began working with Foley, who also coaches Tiger Woods and Justin Rose, shortly before the Open Championship last summer and finished third at Muirfield after taking a two-shot lead into the final round.

However, the 40-year-old Englishman recorded just one subsequent top-10 finish on the European Tour during the rest of a winless season and has started 2014 with a share of 47th at the Farmers Insurance Open and a missed cut in the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Westwood spent a total of 22 weeks as world number one in two spells after succeeding Woods in October 2010, but is now ranked 33rd.

Speaking about ending his time with Foley, he told GolfWeek: "I just wanted to work on swing positions and stuff like that a bit more. I didn't feel like Sean coached like that, so it didn't really fit what I wanted to do.

"I felt like I had the game that got me to world number one. And I was working on stuff that I didn't work on back then, so it made sense to go back to what I was working on before."

Asked about finding a new coach, Westwood added: "I have things in the pipeline. Nobody has got any need to apply."